Students looking to create the latest popular app can visit the UF Information Technology Open House on Thursday.
The event for students interested in creating mobile apps will take place at 3:30 p.m. in the new Mobile App Development Environment (MADE@UF) located in Room 100 of the Marston Science Library.
MADE@UF is a collaboration between the George A. Smathers Libraries and UFIT to provide resources to students to facilitate mobile app development and to create a community environment for peers, entrepreneurs and innovators, said Anne Allen, UFIT assistant director of academic technology.
This “mobile sandbox for UF students” has been three years in the making, said Allen, and is a space with software, hardware and necessary resources for students to learn and start developing apps.
Apps created by students at MADE@UF belong solely to the students who created them and will not be published by the university.
“The information session is to introduce students to the space, the hardware, software, local entrepreneurs and the online training resource currently being developed,” Allen said.
The online training is not a course for credit, but it is a resource that will be available outside UF when it is completed in the form of a massive open online course, Allen said.
John Shea, an associate professor of electrical and computing engineering, is developing the online training for MADE@UF. He will be the first to speak on Thursday and plans to give a brief overview of the online course Mobile Application Development with Web Technologies.
Following the presentations, there will be time to talk with presenters and mingle with others interested in mobile app development.
Allen said MADE@UF will finally be able to show off what it has worked toward.
“It took a long time, and there were several hurdles to navigate before it became a reality, but we are extremely pleased with its growth and especially our collaboration with the libraries and Judy Russell, the dean,” Allen said.
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 10/28/2014]
